Hovdey: Summers sizing up short, medium, or long

It’s not that Chad Summers can’t make up his mind about the right Breeders’ Cup race for Mind Your Biscuits. We’re not talking about an indecisive Hamlet here. He’s more like the kid at Christmas, staring at three tempting packages and being told he can open only one.

Pre-entries for the Nov. 2-3 Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs will be taken Monday. A horse can be pre-entered in a maximum of two Breeders’ Cup races, and five days out Summers and his partners were waiting for the world to take a few more turns before making their move.

In Mind Your Biscuits, they know they have a horse who could win the $2 million Sprint, who could be deadly in the $1 million Dirt Mile, and who could possibly steal the show with a lifetime effort in the $6 million Classic, a race to which he has been ambitiously pointed to months, as confirmed by his second in the Whitney and win Sept. 29 in the nine-furlong Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs.

“Before he made this transition, there was an almost outright defiance by turf writers and social media saying that he’s a sprinter, and what were we doing?” Summers said. “We were crazy for wanting to stretch him out.

“When we bought him as a yearling he was kind of all head and no body,” Summers went on. “Over the years, he has grown into himself. Now, as a 5-year-old, he looks more like a stallion – bigger, a little wider, really a powerful horse. It was a years-long process, and with it we’ve found that he can do more than sprint.”

The menu of races offered by the Breeders’ Cup serves to identify the most versatile athletes with regularity, while sometimes thoroughly confusing the folks who must pull the trigger.

In 1985, Greinton won the Californian and Hollywood Gold Cup on dirt and finishing a heartbreak second in the Arlington Million on grass. Trainer Charlie Whittingham owned the colt with partners Howell Wynne Jr. and Mary Bradley, but it was up to Charlie to decide between the Classic and the Turf for the Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct. Either way, Greinton would need to be supplemented at a cost of either $360,000 or $240,000.

This reporter can attest that Whittingham agonized over the call, and he agonized over very few things. The weather report finally steered Charlie away from what figured to be the kind of muddy main track Greinton could not abide. Of course, the day was dry, and Greinton finished seventh to Pebbles in the Turf.

Six years later, trainer Bruce Jackson arrived at the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs with In Excess, winner of the Met Mile, Suburban, Whitney, and Woodward. Only a decent effort in the Classic stood between the California-based colt and Horse of the Year. And yet Jackson, knowing more about his horse than the rest of us, opted for the Mile on the grass.

“I’ve never really thought of my horse as a mile-and-a-quarter horse,” Jackson told reporters, hoping they forgot the Belmont track record set by In Excess in the 10-furlong Suburban. “He’s worked very well twice on the turf here. He really seems to like it.”

In Excess finished in a dead heat for ninth in the Mile. Black Tie Affair won the Classic and with it, Horse of the Year.

Then again, sometimes it works out. In 2001, Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin crew arrived in New York with Arc de Triomphe winner Sakhee and Irish Champion winner Fantastic Light. They would be split between the Classic and the Turf, and when Fantastic Light outworked his stablemate on the main track, the deal seemed to be sealed. Then came entry time, and Sakhee ended up in the Classic.

“We like to surprise people,” trainer Saeed bin Suroor said.

Fantastic Light won the Turf with little fuss, while Sakhee finished second, by a nose, to Tiznow in the Classic.

Summers says he still wakes up in a cold sweat recalling the 2017 BC Sprint at Del Mar, when Biscuits found himself too far back for his own good and then came with a fast-closing third. He respects Imperial Hint, but he also can do the math. The stretch at Churchill Downs is 100 yards longer than Del Mar’s.

Then again, Mind Your Biscuits proved his serious chops at a one-turn mile last June, when he came within a nose of beating Bee Jersey in the Metropolitan.

“On the sheets, it was his best performance,” the trainer said. “And I was watching Bee Jersey going into that race. Steve Asmussen had him trained to perfection.”

A year ago, Summers and his horse were stabled in the same Del Mar shed row as the Asmussen Breeders’ Cup horses, including Gun Runner, who, according to the common wisdom, was unproven at the 1 1/4 miles of the Classic. How did that work out?

“Gun Runner’s first Breeders’ Cup race was the Dirt Mile,” Summers noted. “We were with him last year in Dubai when he prepared for the World Cup, and again at Del Mar, and we saw how he matured.

“Comparing them side by side, they have a similar build, and similar personalities, although Biscuits is a little more playful,” Summers added. “We always said, ‘If Gun Runner can do this, why can’t we?’ That’s how we’ve continued to make this journey.”